Money Making Guide

The age old phrase of "You have to spend money to make money" holds true in Assassin's Creed III. To get some quick cash fast, collect all of the Treasure Chests. These chests also contribute to a 100% Synchronization, so it's worth your while to collect them anyway. Each chest contains a different collection of items and money. Some have recipes (which are useful in completing Courier Missions) others having sums from £1,500 to £10,000. To make this an even more cost-effective solution, use the Interactive maps so that you do not have to shell out the big bucks for the in-game maps.

Homestead Missions are crucial to making bank. You will want to do these as soon as they become available. With each Homestead Mission, you either unlock or level up characters for your Homestead. These people will help you unlock supplies for Crafting.

Forts in Assassin's Creed III serve many purposes in the game, but in terms of making money, the more Templar-owned forts there are, the higher taxes will be. Clearing out these forts as soon as you can (Sequence 6 for Boston and Frontier, Sequence 9 for New York) will lower taxes, thus increasing revenue.

A very easy way to make money from the start is by buying & selling Beaver Pelts. You can buy 4 Beaver Pelts for £640, which can earn you around £1900 in profit per Convoy, if sold in an upgraded Land Convoy.

Beaver are one the more valuable animal hides in AC3, so a beaver respawn point is pretty useful. As you enter homestead from the Frontier walk straight until you hit the water there are 4 Beavers at the river edge and 1 or 2 near the trees. Beavers don't run fast so it easy to kill them(use hidden blade for best results).

Fast travel to Homestead entrance in Frontier (you should be in the Frontier after fast travel). Follow the road down and turn left toward the water as soon as you can, and from the cliffs above, you should see two bears in the area below near the water's edge that can be easily killed with successful QTEs to earn pelts, claws, and grease. Fast travel to the same location again after skinning the bears and they will respawn (works for PS3 and 360). Bear pelts are one of the most, if not the most, profitable items in the game and with this method you get as many as you want for free!

Crafting is where the high-priced items come from to sell. Creating these will let you send them out in Convoys, but more on that later. To craft items, you must find the recipes for them either in Treasure Chests or as rewards for completing Side Missions. To enter the crafting menu, find an Accounting Book either at the Homestead or at any of the General Stores. Trade items are the ones that will pull in the biggest bucks, so it's best to focus on those. The first things that you will want to craft, however, is a new ship and all the upgrades that come with it. This will open doors to larger and faster income.

Convoys are how you actually get your goods to the hands of customers. To send a convoy, you must load it up, and send it off through the Trading menu in the Accounting Books. Remember, load up on things that will sell for lots of cash and to not take up space with cheaper items.

If you want to make the big bucks in this game, other than treasure chests, naval convoys are the way to go. After you upgrade your hunter artisan, you will be able to purchase bear pelts from her. However, it is cheaper to hunt the bears yourself, for maximum profit. After all your artisans are fully upgraded, you can craft naval convoys, and also the naval convoy capacity upgrade (shipping more product at a time gets you more profit, faster). Doing Naval Missions from the Harbor Master "clears the path", so to speak, lowering your convoys' risk when en route. You can easily make over £23,000 by loading up a naval convoy with bear pelts to Saint-Augustine.

The top 5 highest market prices for items sold via naval convoy are:

Fine clothing to The Virgin Islands - £1922/each

Fine clothing to Louisbourg - £1861/each

Bear pendants to Saint-Augustine - £1690/each

Quilts to The Virgin Islands - £1670/each

Quilts to Louisbourg - £1617/each

Keep in mind that it does take 32 minutes for your naval convoys to return with your money.

Sending Convoys is a risky thing to do, what with all the animals and British about. There are a few ways to reduce the risk though, with the easiest being to do Liberation Missions and Privateer Contracts. It is also smart to only send your convoy to one merchant to reduce the risk of getting caught.

If one of your convoys does fall under attack, you will get a notification on your screen. You can then fast-travel to the location to defend it. Kill off all the enemies to secure your shipment. If you are tied up, you can send one of your Assassin Recruits instead. The level they are at will determine their chance of success to defend your convoy.

Find yourself slaughtering through vast groups of redcoats? Well another easy and quick way to gain a few pounds while on the job is to loot your dead enemies. You might just think thats its pointless. However, if work up a habit of doing it you will rack up the cash in no time. At the start of the game i found myself desperate for money. The best way is to just take what you can find and appreciate it as it will come in handy later on in the game.

Another easy way to get a lot of cash is to go hunting. It usually works best with arrows and the hidden blade. Also, the easy way to sneak up on your prey is to either shoot them from the trees (don't ever use a pistol it will damage the pelt making it useless) or assassinating them from the branches.

If you're going after elk, deer, cougar, or bears don't use your bow as it won't kill them and you will most likely lose your arrow. If your mainly going for deer or elk either get them from above with your hidden blade or go on horse back (it may be a bit tricky on horse back but deer and elk always run).

Wolves and bobcats are always one of the best to go after since they almost always travel in packs, or more will be near by (Note: wolves and bobcats are easy to kill as long as your good at the timing of the button pressings). Hunting wolves is easiest in the Davenport Homestead, because there is a spawn point there. Go to the harbormaster, then walk south. During the night, you can find three wolves there. To make them respawn, simply walk back to the wooden shack and return: the wolves are back again.